Under the skin of Pompeii: the archaic city

Alessandra Avagliano

The scientific debate on the origins of Pompeii goes back to the beginning of the 1900s, when F.J. Haverfield identified the traces of an early village in the plan of the city, the so-called Altstadt. This area, which can be recognized thanks to the curved shape of its perimeter, would have constituted the “city centre” inside the regular plan of the larger Roman city. This theory was questioned in the 1980s, after the discovery of an archaic fortification, whose extension corresponds to the area enclosed by the later walls. Following this discovery, it became evident that the city had not undergone a process of enlargement. The first attempt to gather information concerning the archaic phase of Pompeii was undertaken by Ch. Reusser on the occasion of the publication of the excavations carried out by H. Eschebach in the House of Ganymede (VII, 13, 4). Since then, the list of findings has not been updated in a systematic way, despite the fact that in the meantime the excavations in the pre–79 levels have increased in number. On the basis of a new systematic gathering of data, this paper aims to reassess the chronology of the urban plan of Pompeii, traditionally dated between the 4th and 3rd century BC, but probably existing before.